| The Moon Illusion |
[Jun. 23rd, 2005|11:49 am]
Webreviews- Philosophy, Science, Literature...
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Moonrise, Cape Sounion, Greece
Credit & Copyright: Anthony Ayiomamitis
Explanation: The Moon was full this month on June 22nd, only a day after the northern hemisphere's summer solstice. Since this solstice marked the northernmost point of the Sun's annual motion through planet Earth's sky, the full Moon rising near the ecliptic plane opposite the Sun was at its farthest south for the year. Only a month earlier, on May 23rd, astronomer Anthony Ayiomamitis recorded this picture of another southerly full Moon rising above Cape Sounion, Greece. The twenty-four hundred year old Temple of Poseidon lies in the foreground, also visible to sailors on the Aegean Sea. In this well-planned, single exposure, a long telephoto lens makes the Moon loom large, but even without optical aid casual skygazers often find the full Moon looking astonishingly large when seen near the horizon. That powerful visual effect is known as the Moon Illusion.
New Thoughts on Understanding the Moon Illusion
THE MOON ILLUSION EXPLAINED
Experiment in Perception: The Ponzo Illusion and the Moon |
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| Biogeography of deep-sea hydrothermal vent faunas |
[Jun. 23rd, 2005|11:00 am]
Webreviews- Philosophy, Science, Literature...
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Map showing the global distribution of major hydrothermal vent sites.
Colored circles show vents with similar animal communities.
Based on recent explorations, we know now that across more than 30 degrees of latitude along the East Pacific Rise, there is a single hydrothermal biogeographic province! Giant tubeworms, clams, and mussels -- and many smaller species of polychaete worms, shrimp-like crustaceans, and snails -- have immense ranges, despite physiological and ecological requirements that restrict the adults to isolated vent habitats separated by tens to hundreds of kilometers.
The composition of the animal communities (fauna) at hydrothermal vents is far from the same all over the world’s oceans, however. For example, there is a difference in the vent fauna of the East Pacific Rise off the western coast of Mexico and the vent fauna of the Juan de Fuca Ridge off Vancouver Canada. Why should these Pacific vent faunas be different? The East Pacific Rise goes terrestrial at the mouth of the Colorado River in the Gulf of California, becoming the San Andreas Fault. The fault moves back off-shore at Mendocino, California, and gives way again to a triplet of mid-ocean ridge spreading centers of the northeast Pacific that includes the Juan de Fuca Ridge.
Cindy Lee Van Dover, Chief Scientist of this expedition, is a professor of biology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She is an expert on hydrothermal vent ecology.
http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/index.html |
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| Quantum Theory Looks at Time Travel |
[Jun. 22nd, 2005|10:51 am]
Webreviews- Philosophy, Science, Literature...
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Quantum Theory Looks at Time Travel
Authors: Daniel M. Greenberger, Karl Svozil
Comments: This paper contains minor changes to our paper published as Chapter 4 of Quo Vadis Quantum Mechanics?, ed. by A. Elitzur, S. Dolev and N. Kolenda, Springer Verlag, Berlin (2005). It is an expanded version of D.M. Greenberger and K. Svozil, in: Between Chance and Choice, ed. by H. Atmanspacher and R. Bishop, Imprint Academic, Thorverton England (2002), pp. 293-308. Two references added
We introduce a quantum mechanical model of time travel which includes two figurative beam splitters in order to induce feedback to earlier times. This leads to a unique solution to the paradox where one could kill one's grandfather in that once the future has unfolded, it cannot change the past, and so the past becomes deterministic. On the other hand, looking forwards towards the future is completely probabilistic. This resolves the classical paradox in a philosophically satisfying manner.
pdf |
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| Lenin's Tomb Blog |
[May. 18th, 2005|10:38 am]
Webreviews- Philosophy, Science, Literature...
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Lenin's Tomb Blog |
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| Satirical Website: Dow Chemical |
[May. 12th, 2005|08:34 am]
Webreviews- Philosophy, Science, Literature...
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| | Concerto voor klarinet in A K - Mozart | ] |
Acceptable Risk™
Dowethics |
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| Fibonacci Numbers, Phi, the Golden Section (Ratio or Mean) |
[Apr. 14th, 2005|04:43 pm]
Webreviews- Philosophy, Science, Literature...
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Fibonacci Numbers and the Golden Section
Fibonacci Numbers @ MathWorld
fibonacci @ holy cross
Fibonacci Numbers in Nature
 
etc
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987
The life and numbers of Fibonacci by R.Knott, D.A.Quinney and PASS Maths @ plus magazine
Fibonacci Facts: INFORMATION SHEET ON FIBONACCI NUMBERS and blibliography
G. E. Duckworth. Structural Patterns and Proportions in Vergil's Aeneid, University of Michigan Press, 1962.
Fibonacci Numbers Spelled Out
Golden Ratio, Fibonacci Sequence 
Fibonacci Number-Theorists
THE FIBONACCI SERIES
goldennumber.net |
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